Maybe Holding Hands Wasn't Such a Good Idea

It was only a little after seven that evening and I was standing in the kitchen watching some hot dogs boiling in a pot on the stove while listening to the Spanish soap opera, or novela, Besos de Sangre. Matt was right, this show was pretty funny and the actors were way over the top. I had just finished up the paper Mr. Johnson had assigned earlier today and I was starving. I was taking a dinner break before I started on my math homework.

I heated up some chili in the microwave before shredding some cheddar cheese. I had hopped up on the counter and was debating on doing a load of laundry tonight or waiting till tomorrow when the doorbell rang.

With a sigh, I jumped off the counter and turned the heat down on the stove before going to answer the door. I had a feeling that Tyler wouldn’t stay away tonight after our fight this afternoon—he’d been texting me constantly all afternoon, letting me know what he was doing every ten minutes or so; it was worse than Twitter updates—and would be standing on the opposite side of the door with some kind of peace offering. I hoped he had brought over some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Not that it would make up for him being a colossal jerk earlier, but it would definitely be a start in the right direction.

I opened the door. “Ty—Matt!” I almost slammed the door shut in surprise. “What are you doing here? Sorry, I mean,” I said getting flustered. “Come on in.”

“Sorry for just showing up,” Matt said. “What are you up to?”

“It’s fine. I was just making myself some dinner,” I said walking to the kitchen with Matt following alongside me. “So why did you just decide to come over?” I asked as my attention went back to the floating hot dogs.

“What are you making?” Matt asked instead of answering me.

“Just some chili dogs, nothing too fancy.”

Matt’s eyes landed on the little T.V. on the counter. He looked at me with a raised brow. “Besos de Sangre?” He asked. “That’s the vampire show right?”

I nodded. “I thought I would take a page from your book. So, are you going to answer my question?”

“Just wanted to check up on you. I thought that you and Vaughn probably would’ve fought after I left, and well...I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

I smiled. Matt really was a good guy. “I’m fine. We’re fine. Tyler and I did fight but we’re good now. Thanks for coming over to check on me,” I said turning the stove off. “You hungry?”

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks for offering though,” Matt smiled.

“If you change your mind, let me know,” I said getting the chili out of the microwave carefully, not wanting to burn myself with the hot bowl. I didn’t hear Matt move behind me, but I felt the softest of touches on the bruise on my back, which I had managed to completely forget about. I cursed silently at my decision to not change into a shirt with sleeves when I came home. But how could I know that anyone—especially Matt—would come over tonight and see it?

I whirled around quickly, putting space between us.

“Liv, what the hell happened?” Matt’s face had darkened with anger. “Did Tyler do that to you?”

I almost rolled my eyes at the notion of Tyler hurting me, it was completely ridiculous.

“Liv, fucking answer me.”

I shook my head. “No, it wasn’t Tyler.” I looked away from him. “I tripped and fell and hurt myself. It’s not a big deal.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” Matt grated out before moving swiftly for the door.

I quickly grabbed his hand. “Matt, no! Stop! It really wasn’t Tyler!”

Matt stopped walking abruptly and snorted at me. “Bullshit. Why are you defending him?”

“Because he didn’t hurt me! Do you really think I would let him hurt me? I’m not an idiot, Matt.”

“Then who did?” I could literally feel Matt shaking with anger as he stared down at me.

I gulped. “No one. I fell.”

“Liv, I’m only going to ask you one more time, who did this to you? Because you can’t honestly expect me to believe that you tripped and fell. I’m not an idiot.”

“Why are you so angry?” I asked letting go of his hand.

“Because a guy should never lay a hand on a girl, no matter how upset he is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go teach your boyfriend some manners on how to treat you right.”

I grabbed his hand once more and tried to drag him back into the kitchen. “It wasn’t Tyler, Matt.”

“Then who the fuck hurt you?”

“Tiffany!” I exclaimed suddenly before covering my mouth with my hands. I hadn’t meant to blurt out the truth.

Matt’s breath rushed out quickly. “What?”

I sighed as I ran a hand through my hair. There was no use lying to Matt now, I thought sourly. “Sit down and I’ll tell you,” I said moving around the counter to assemble my chili dogs, which I had a feeling I wouldn’t be able to eat seeing as how my appetite was diminishing rapidly into nothing.

Matt sat down at the kitchen table and followed my movements with narrowed eyes. “So when did she—?”

“After school,” I said spearing a hot dog with a fork and placing in it the bun. “She cornered me at my locker and lucky for me, no one was around.” I poured some chili on the hot dog before sprinkling some shredded cheese on top of it.

I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and sat down across from Matt, eyeing the food on my plate rather than eating it. “She told me to stay away from you, threatened more like, and I decided to be a smart ass. Then she shoved me into the lockers before I knew what was going on. I landed on my lock and that’s how I got hurt,” I looked up at Matt’s face. “Tyler didn’t touch me. He would never touch me like that.”

“Well, can you blame me for jumping to conclusions? I knew he was pissed when I left. And I left you alone with him anyway without a way to defend yourself. God, Liv, I felt like such an asshole a few minutes ago when I thought you got hurt because of me,” Matt smiled weakly at me.

“I kind of did, if you think about it,” I said slowly. I took a sip of my water before returning my gaze to Matt.

“Fuck, you’re right. I had no idea that Tiffany would ever do something like that,” he said quickly. “I’m so sorry. This should not have happened.”

“It’s fine, Matt. It’s just a bruise, it’ll fade in a day or two,” I shrugged philosophically. “No big deal.”

“But it’s still my fault. I should have listened to Kara and not have dragged you into this,” he said a little glumly. “I’m such a dick for pulling you into my problems.”

“Matt,” I said seriously as my hand covered his much larger one on the table, locking my gaze with his. “Are you breaking up with me? Because I’m still willing to go through with this thing on Saturday if you are.”

I smirked as Matt cracked a small smile and his hand turned over and clasped mine. He sighed as his smile faded. “I thought you’d want to back out.”

My eyebrows rose as I took my hand back. “After today? Are you kidding? At first, I felt a little bad for Tiffany, but now, I think she deserves this. Plus, I can’t wait to see her face when she walks in on us,” I smiled a bit. “More specifically when she sees me with you. I hope steam comes out of her ears.”

“Olivia Masters, you are downright devious,” Matt smirked.

“Thank you.” I took a bow. “But I think we need to change our strategy for tomorrow.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think that we should talk tomorrow or Friday,” I said. “Let’s have Tiffany think she scared me off, that way on Saturday, the surprise has more of an impact. Plus, it’ll give Tyler a chance to cool down,” I said softly.

“Was he really that pissed?” Matt’s tone was genuinely concerned.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“What did you two fight about, if you don’t mind my asking?”

I let out a breath before looking over at Matt. “Me kissing you on the cheek and he might have tried to order me to stay away from you.”

“Really now? I hope you told him to fuck off.” Matt’s eyebrows crinkled together in thought. “But how did he find out about the kiss?”

“I didn’t use those words exactly,” I laughed. “I told him he couldn’t keep me from being your friend. And there’s this freshman who’s the water boy for the football team and apparently he has English third period, too. He saw us and since he absolutely looks up to Tyler, he told him.”

“Damn, does Tyler have his friends spying on you all day or something?” Matt’s tone was harsh. “Do they work in shifts? What’s the deal?”

“I don’t think Tyler would do something like that, Matt. I just think that Tommy and I have English at the same time is all.”

My phone vibrated loudly on the kitchen counter and I made a face before going over to read Tyler’s new text message.

“Is that Tyler?” Matt asked. I could hear a sort of smugness in his voice.

“Yes,” I replied in a clipped tone.

After I sent my text back to Tyler, I looked up at Matt. He was staring at me as though he was trying to read my mind. “What?”

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“Get what?”

“What do you see in Vaughn?”

“He’s hot. That’s about as far as my thought process went,” I said mimicking Matt’s answer when I asked the same about Tiffany Monday evening.

“Ha ha,” Matt laughed. “No, really. I wanna know what you like about him.”

“Why?”

“Well, after getting to know you these past, what is it now, six days? I’m curious about what you see in him. Cause honestly, he doesn’t seem like your type.”

“And my type is what exactly?” I smiled.

“I dunno, someone who’s not a total jock strap.”

I let out a laugh before I could stop it and Matt smiled back at me.

“So?”

“Tyler’s actually pretty great, once you get past that whole macho jock thing,” I said.

“If he’s so great, why did you make that face when you were texting him?” Matt asked.

“What face?” I hadn’t been aware my demeanor was any different.

“The face someone makes when they just realized that they stepped in dog crap in their good shoes.”

I snorted a laugh at Matt’s wonderful mental image. “I didn’t look like that,” I said.

“You did too,” Matt laughed.

“Tyler’s just been texting me all day,” I said. “At least once every ten minutes, letting me know what he’s doing, or telling me he’s thinking about me or misses me or whatever. After a few hours of this, I’m just about ready to ship my phone off to Peru.”

“He kinda sounds like Tiffany. She would smother me a lot too before I realized that I could just do this,” Matt reached forward quickly and took my phone out of my hands.

“What are you doing?” I asked as I watched Matt fiddle with my phone.

“Saving your sanity and keeping you from paying high international shipping charges,” he said holding out the phone to me, the screen flashed the goodbye logo before going dark.

I smiled reluctantly before taking my phone back. “Thanks, I think.”

“All you have to do is talk to him about giving you some space, and if he’s a great as you claim he is, he’ll back off.”

“You think so?”

Matt nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

“So, how do you guys know each other?”

“You didn’t ask Tyler?”

I shook my head.

“I thought he would have taken any opportunity to paint me the villain,” Matt said dryly.

“Why would he do that?” I asked.

“Well, back when we were younger, believe it or not, Vaughn and I were best friends.”

I felt my jaw drop open. “You’re joking, right?”

Matt shook his head. “No, I’m being completely serious. We’d been on the same little league team since we were seven, before he gave up baseball for football that is. Anyway, our seventh grade year I had this girlfriend and we were at a birthday party and I walked in on her and Vaughn making out in a closet. She dumped me for him and that was the end of our friendship and my first relationship.”

I had a feeling that Matt was leaving something out of the story. “That’s not all, is it?”

Matt smirked. “No. I kicked his ass for being a shitty friend, stole my girlfriend back and then dumped her. After that, Vaughn didn’t take her back and we became mortal enemies.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Matt was quiet for a few minutes. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I just really needed your help and figured if you knew about mine and Vaughn’s past you’d say no and then I’d be screwed. I’m sorry I didn’t though. But I didn’t think he’d ever find out and if it hadn’t been for that damn water boy, Vaughn wouldn’t even know we’re friends.”

“You still should’ve told me, Matt,” I said. “I thought you were going to be honest with me from now on.”

“I am being honest with you, Liv. I bet if you ask Vaughn, he won’t tell you the same thing I did. But that’s it, I promise you, there’s nothing else I’m keeping from you, I swear.”

I looked into Matt’s eyes, contemplating his words before I sighed. “I believe you.”

Matt smiled quickly, his dimples appearing. “Great. For a second I thought you’d tell me to get the hell out and not talk to me anymore.”

“I can’t do that,” I smiled back. “I promised I’d help you out and Saturday’s right around the corner and everything. I couldn’t leave you hanging.”

“So you forgive me then?” Matt’s eyes looked hopefully into mine.

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “I can see why you didn’t want to tell me about you and Tyler. But you didn’t just ask me to help you as some sort of revenge plot against him, did you?”

“What? No, Liv, I wouldn’t do that to you, even before I got to know you. I already told you, I don’t like using one person to get back at another.”

I nodded slowly. I figured as much, but a small part of me couldn’t help the thought from crossing my mind.

“So, speaking of Saturday,” Matt said licking his lips before glancing at mine quickly. “Do you think we should start practicing a bit?”

I blushed and nodded. I breathed deep before letting my breath rush out slowly. “Y-yeah, we should start practicing.”

Matt stood up and looked down at me. “Are you sure?” He asked, his eyes locked onto mine with concern.

“I’m sure,” I nodded.

“Cause we still have a couple of days if you want to wait.”

“No, I want to do this now and get it out of the way.”

“Jeez, that was flattering,” Matt smirked.

“You know that wasn’t how I meant it,” I laughed.

Matt’s smile faded as he closed the distance between us. “I know.”

The butterflies in my stomach went into overdrive with his proximity, flying faster and faster with every step he took toward me.

“We’ll take it slow,” he murmured quietly.

I could only look up into his eyes and nod, unsure if I was actually capable of speaking anymore.

Matt’s hands captured my waist gently and he pulled me closer to him, my arms went around his neck and to an onlooker, we probably looked as though we were frozen in the middle of a slow dance.

My lips were starting to tingle and Matt hadn’t even kissed me yet! Staring up at him, it was impossible not to notice the height difference between us. I leaned up on my tiptoes to close the gap, leaning closer into him in the process.

My nose was now aligned with his smiling lips.

“Hey,” Matt whispered.

I chuckled. “Hi.”

“Why did you—”

“So you wouldn’t hurt yourself bending over.”

“Yeah, you are a little on the short side, huh?” He chuckled.

“Hey!” I objected with a laugh and started to pull back, but Matt tightened his grip slightly around my waist, locking me in his arms and holding me close, my hands were now resting on his chest. I could feel his heart beating rapidly beneath my palm; I guess I wasn’t the only one nervous for us to kiss.

Matt removed one arm from around my waist and with gentle fingertips, tilted my chin up, locking our gazes. In one moment, Matt and I had gone from playful to intense. He slowly lowered his lips to mine and my eyes fluttered shut.

With a soft touch, that was more a tender caress, Matt’s lips moved slowly against mine. I couldn’t hold in the gasp that I made when our lips touched. I felt Matt smile a bit before he kissed me harder, his hands gripped at my waist tighter, pulling me even closer against his firm body. My hands moved from his chest to his shoulders, holding on tight to keep him from moving away from me.

When we pulled apart, Matt’s lips were a little red—I’m sure mine looked the same—my arms were wrapped around his neck again. One of his hands was tangled in my hair and the other had a firm grip on my waist, his thumb had been rubbing circles on the exposed skin between my shirt and pants and we were both breathing a little heavy as though we just finished running a four minute mile. His eyes never left mine and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking as he stared at me. I saw him lean in again and my eyes fell shut.

“What’s going on in here?”

“Carver!” I quickly pulled away from Matt, noticing for the first time that I was sitting on the counter and Matt was between my legs that were wrapped around his hips, and looked guiltily over at Carver standing at the kitchen entrance with an unreadable expression on his face. I quickly wiped my lips with my hand. “We were just studying for Biology,” I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, wincing from the sheer stupidity of my very obvious untruth as I jumped down from the counter.

“Are you sure it wasn’t Chemistry?” Carver smirked, his eyebrow raised in amusement.

My cheeks stained red and I looked over at Matt for help.

Matt, thankfully, didn’t seem to be as embarrassed at being caught making out in the middle of my kitchen as I was. I briefly wondered how many fathers had walked into the same scene to see Matt and their daughters locked in an intimate embrace for him to remain as stoic as he was now under Carver’s scrutinizing eyes.

“We were practicing for a drama project,” Matt offered casually.

Carver laughed dryly. “I tried that one out on my mom when she walked in on me and my first boyfriend. Now I can see why it didn’t work on her either. So, Liv, wanna tell me why you’re making out with Matt in the middle of the kitchen?”

“Can I tell him?” I asked Matt, desperation coloring my tone.

“Sure, go ahead,” Matt shrugged.

“You see, Matt has this girlfriend—”

“Oh, so you’re both cheating then?” Carver asked bluntly.

I winced at his words before continuing my explanation. “Matt’s girlfriend is a lot on the psychotic side and I agreed to help him get rid of her.”

“By pretending to be his girlfriend?” Carver surmised.

“Exactly!” I was relieved that Carver knew what I was talking about. “Only to make it believable, we’ve been hanging out and getting to know each other. And the kissing was purely for theatrical purposes only.”

Carver only stood there, staring Matt down. I felt Matt fidget slightly at my side and realized his stoicism was a front.

“Is that true?” Carver asked.

Those three words were simple enough, but sounded threatening to me anyway. I could only imagine how Matt was interpreting them.

“Ye-yeah. Liv’s just helping me get rid of my psycho girlfriend. It’s either have her think I’m cheating on her and have her dump me or get a restraining order.”

Carver stood silently once more, he seemed to be mulling over our story. “A restraining order, huh? Is this girl really that bad?”

“You have no idea,” Matt said.

I silently agreed with him as I remembered what she did to me earlier this afternoon.

“I’ve tried dumping her, ignoring her calls and texts, and nothing’s worked so far.”

Carver uncrossed his arms and pulled himself up to his fullest height. “I believe you for now, Matt,” he said slowly. “Just make sure Liv doesn’t get hurt in all of this.”

“She won’t,” Matt said solemnly. “I promise.”

I had a feeling Matt’s words went beyond just a promise to Carver, but were also a promise he was making to me.

“Don’t go around making promises lightly. I fully expect you to keep your word. Or I’ll have to make a call to Carlos and Jake. You do remember them, don’t you, Matt?” Carlos and Jake were Carver’s friends down at the coroner’s office.

Matt nodded once.

Carver smiled warmly, the sight was at severe odds with the threat he just issued. “Good.”

Carver walked up to me, hugged me quickly, kissed my cheek and then grabbed some water from the fridge. “Remember, kids; no glove, no love.” He paused mid-step and turned back to face us. “Never mind, no love with or without a glove,” he said to Matt and then left the kitchen whistling.

“Fuck, that guy is scary,” Matt breathed out.

“Only when he’s looking out for me,” I said. “So, I guess you want to leave now, huh?”

Matt cast me a desperate glance. “In the worst way imaginable.”

I snorted a laugh. “Come on, I’ll see you out.” I reached for Matt’s hand and led him through the house. When we got to the front door, I hugged Matt and rubbed his back soothingly. “Don’t worry about Carver, I’ll talk to him and get him to back off.”

“Thanks,” Matt said against my ear causing a tingle to shoot down my spine and I shivered against him.

Matt pulled away slightly and kissed my lips quickly. It was over before I had the chance to react.

“Guess you’re feeling braver,” I smiled as I stepped away from him.

Matt laughed. “Something like that. Of course, I’m also standing at your front door, which makes it easy for me to escape from Carver.”

I chuckled. “See you later, Matt.”

“Good night, Liv. Oh wait! Before I forget, I found this in my pocket,” Matt smirked holding up the twenty I slipped into his pocket earlier.

I smiled sheepishly as I shrugged. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

Matt held his hand out and I rolled my eyes as I took the money back.

“Good night, Liv.”

“Good night, Matt.” I kissed his cheek and closed the door behind him before quickly going up to my room to find a sweatshirt to slip into so Carver wouldn’t see my bruise. I went down into the game room where Carver had his books laid out around on the mahogany desk.

“Is lover boy gone?”

“Yup,” I said.

“Okay.”

“Carver, would you mind easing up off of Matt a bit?”

“As soon as he keeps his lips and hands to himself,” he said not looking away from his highlighting.

I let out an annoyed sigh. “I told you why we were kissing.”

Carver met my gaze then. “Liv, sweetheart, there’s kissing and then there’s what you and Matt were doing.”

It took me a second to process what Carver had said. “What were we doing exactly?”

“From the looks of things, getting ready to start shedding clothes.”

I snorted indelicately. “Please, Carver, we weren’t—”

“All I’m saying is that you two were getting hot and heavy. Hell, I was standing there for at least five minutes before you both pulled apart from each other. Who knows how long you two were going at it before I got here.”

That got my attention. “Gross, Carver. You were just standing there watching us?”

“Hey,” Carver said quickly. “I wasn’t exactly a ninja when I got in. You two were so wrapped up in each other that you didn’t hear me clearing my throat. I was about ready to hose you down before you stopped of your own accord. I understand you’re just helping Matt out, but you have a boyfriend, kid. Don’t forget about Tyler.” He said and turned his attention back to his notes, clearly ending the conversation.

Listening to Carver stick up for Tyler got my attention, it was definitely a 180° compared to what I thought Carver felt about mine and Tyler’s relationship. I started to leave when Carver’s voice stopped me.

“How was it?”

I didn’t turn around to look at him as I smiled at the memory, my fingers touched my still tingling lips. “I don’t kiss and tell,” I said nonchalantly.

“Yeah, well from what I saw, you wouldn’t need to say much,” Carver replied dryly.

I left then, a blush burning my cheeks, ignoring Carver’s remark. He was right about one thing though; I had a boyfriend who was expecting a phone call from me tonight.